Typical cave-dwelling organisms, unpigmented and eyeless, were discovered in a karst area located in northeastern Brazil. The organisms were assigned to a new genus and species of freshwater flatworm and ...

The dangerous parasite Schistosoma mansoni that causes snail fever in humans could become significantly less common in the future a new international study led by researchers from the University of Copenh ...

Few animals can rival the amazing regeneration abilities of the flatworms known as planarians: When the worms' tails or heads are cut off, they grow new ones, and even a tiny piece of planarian tissue can ...

Research undertaken by the Cardiff University Otter Project has revealed a number of disease-causing parasites in the bodies of dead otters. The findings were revealed at the BBC Summer of Wildlife event ...

Cilia, microscopic whip-like organelles that protrude from the surface of many cell types, are almost ubiquitous. They are present in all eukaryotes—organisms whose cells have a nucleus—and have diversified ...

Despite their unassuming appearance, the planarian flatworms in Whitehead Institute Member Peter Reddien's lab are revealing powerful new insights into the biology of stem cellsinsights that may eventually help such ...

Timing is everything, and if there was ever a scientist whose legacy was tarnished by bad timing, it was Jean Baptiste Lamarck. The French naturalist lived from 1744 to 1829 - and published his own evolutionary theory decades ...

Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco and the Stowers Institute for Medical Research have discovered that planarians, tiny flatworms fabled for their regenerative powers, completely lack ...

Our bodies are perfectly capable of renewing billions of cells every day but fail miserably when it comes to replacing damaged organs such as kidneys. Using the flatworm Schmidtea mediterraneafamous for it ...

Marine shallow water sandy bottoms on the surface appear desert-like and empty, but in the interstitial space between the sand grains a diverse fauna flourishes. In addition to bacteria and protozoa numerous ...

(PhysOrg.com) -- Most people dont think worms are cool. But the tiny flatworm that Northwestern University scientist Christian Petersen studies can do something very cool indeed: it can regenerate itself from nearly ...

A single adult cell from one of the most impressive masters of regeneration in the animal kingdom  the planarian  is all it takes to build a completely functional new worm, researchers have learned. The study ...

Flatworm

The flatworms, known in scientific literature as Platyhelminthes or Plathelminthes (from the Greek πλατύ, platy, meaning "flat" and ἕλμινς (root: ἑλμινθ-), helminth-, meaning worm) are a phylum of relatively simple bilaterian, unsegmented, soft-bodied invertebrate animals. Unlike other bilaterians, they have no body cavity, and no specialized circulatory and respiratory organs, which restricts them to flattened shapes that allow oxygen and nutrients to pass through their bodies by diffusion.

In traditional zoology texts Platyhelminthes are divided into Turbellaria, which are mostly non-parasitic animals such as planarians, and three entirely parasitic groups: Cestoda, Trematoda and Monogenea. Turbellarians are mostly predators, and live in water or in shaded, humid terrestrial environments such as leaf litter. Cestodes (tapeworms) and trematodes (flukes) have complex life-cycles, with mature stages that live as parasites in the digestive systems of fish or land vertebrates, and intermediate stages that infest secondary hosts. The eggs of trematodes are excreted from their main hosts, whereas adult cestodes generate vast numbers of hermaphroditic, segment-like proglottids which detach when mature, are excreted and then release eggs. Unlike the other parasitic groups, the monogeneans are external parasites infesting aquatic animals, and their larvae metamorphose into the adult form after attaching to a suitable host.

Because they do not have internal body cavities, for over a century Platyhelminthes were regarded as a primitive stage in the evolution of bilaterians (animals with bilateral symmetry and hence with distinct front and rear ends). However, analyses since the mid-1980s have separated out one sub-group, the Acoelomorpha, as basal bilaterians, in other words closer to the original bilaterians than to any other modern groups. The remaining Platyhelminthes form a monophyletic group, in other words one that contains all and only descendants of a common ancestor that is itself a member of the group. The redefined Platyhelminthes is part of the Lophotrochozoa, one of the three main groups of more complex bilaterians. These analyses have also concluded that the redefined Platyhelminthes, excluding Acoelomorpha, consists of two monophyletic sub-groups, Catenulida and Rhabditophora, and that Cestoda, Trematoda and Monogenea form a monophyletic sub-group within one branch of the Rhabditophora. Hence the traditional platyhelminth sub-group "Turbellaria" is now regarded as paraphyletic since it excludes the wholly parasitic groups although these are descended from one group of "turbellarians".

Over half of all known flatworm species are parasitic, and some do enormous harm to humans and their livestock. Schistosomiasis, caused by one genus of trematodes, is the second most devastating of all human diseases caused by parasites, surpassed only by malaria. Neurocysticercosis, which arises when larvae of the pork tapeworm Taenia solium penetrate the central nervous system, is the major cause of acquired epilepsy worldwide. The threat of platyhelminth parasites to humans in developed countries is rising because of organic farming, the popularity of raw or lightly cooked foods, and imports of food from high-risk areas. In less developed countries, people often cannot afford the fuel required to cook food thoroughly, and poorly designed water-supply and irrigation projects increase the dangers presented by poor sanitation and unhygienic farming.

Two planarian species have been used successfully in the Philippines, Indonesia, Hawaii, New Guinea and Guam to control populations of the imported giant African snail Achatina fulica, which was displacing native snails. However, there is now concern that these planarians may themselves become a serious threat to native snails. In North-west Europe there are concerns about the spread of the New Zealand planarian Arthurdendyus triangulatus, which preys on earthworms.